Floyd Landis

July 1st, 2008 filed in Cycling

On July 27, 2006 the Phonak Cycling Team announced Floyd Landis had a urine test come back positive, having an unusually high ratio of the hormone testosterone to the hormone epitestosterone (T/E ratio) after the epic performance in Stage 17. Landis denied having doped and placed faith in a test using his backup sample. Phonak stated that he would be dismissed should the backup sample also test positive. It did, and Landis was suspended from professional cycling and dismissed from his team. Landis’s personal physician later disclosed that the test had found a T/E ratio of 11:1 in Landis, far above the maximum allowable ratio of 4:1.

The test on Landis’s Stage 17 A sample had been performed by the French government’s anti-doping clinical laboratory, the National Laboratory for Doping Detection (LNDD). LNDD is a division of the Ministry of Youth, Sport, and Social Life and is accredited by WADA, the World Anti-Doping Agency.

Under the rules of the International Cycling Union (UCI), Landis had five days to request independent verification using the backup sample. However, after just four days, on July 31, the UCI, claiming that Landis had yet to act, preempted him by requesting that the same lab be the one to test the backup sample. The UCI announced, “We have done this so the whole thing can be speeded up. We took this decision because of the importance of the case. Also, the longer it goes on the more damage the sport risks suffering.” In response, a spokesman for Landis insisted that the cyclist had asked on July 31 for testing of the backup sample. Had the UCI not intervened and had Landis waited the full five days before requesting testing of his backup sample, the test result would not have been forthcoming for several weeks since LNDD closes during August, as is a widespread custom among workplaces in France. The B sample confirmed the A sample, and also tested positive for an unnatural source of testosterone.

Following the reported positive drug test on his A sample, Landis suggested that the results had been improperly released by the UCI. On August 9, 2006, UCI president Pat McQuaid rejected the claim, saying, “We acted correctly. We informed the team, the rider, and the federation that there had been an irregularity. Then we issued a press release saying that an unnamed rider had been found positive in the Tour. Landis’s team published his name, two days later… I have full faith in that laboratory, and there are stringent measures kept in place by the anti-doping agencies to ensure they proceed correctly.”